The Lord Is My Shepherd
by gh0sty
Summary: Uchiha Mikoto spends her last moments with her eldest son and dead husband by her side. drabble, very old fic, it can be Itachi/Mikoto if you want?


_The Lord is my shepherd,  
__I shalt not want;  
__He makes me lie down in green pastures.  
__He leads me beside still waters;  
__He restores my soul.  
__He leads me in paths of righteousness  
__For His name's sake._

* * *

Fugaku is dead long before she can find the time to cry.

Mikoto is quiet, to begin with. She can only stare at her fading husband, her black licorice eyes watching the light leave his; she is void of everything and anything. There's only a faint twitch of her brow, a small spark of emotion that makes her heart choke on itself, and then Fugaku is far away and untouchable.

She breathes again.

Her head is spinning, actually, although she appears to be composed. She is. Or maybe she isn't.

Maybe she isn't anything.

Her inhale is shaky, as her eyes flit up to see her eldest son. Her dear son. Her sweet, loving...

"Th-this wasn't supposed to be so hard," she jokes, feebly and in a whisper; it sounds like the words of a dying mother. Itachi's expression softens, and she realizes that there wasn't much humor in that at all.

Rising gracelessly, as if her knees aren't shaking and her body doesn't want to collapse to the tatami floor she'd known forever, she strides over to her destroying savior, smiling. His troubledness finally shows, like a heavy discontentment on his shoulders, and she knows.

For years, she thought she didn't know Itachi as well as she believed, but she realizes then that she was wrong as she gently places a hand on the junction of his shoulder and neck, and the other on his cheek. The motion is maternal, far too much, and Itachi suddenly finds that his eyes are prickling.

"Don't worry so much," she reassures him, and his resolve cracks just a little more.

"I must," he replies, tone quiet, restrained. "You know that."

What he means is that no matter how justified this killing is and will be and has always been, he's one of them, and he deserves to go down, too. (Just like her. She's on Itachi's side, she knows that Fugaku's predatory need to destroy her village, their village, is wrong, but the Elder's are always right, always, always right, and so she obeys. She may be on his side, but she had always been one of them, and so as one of them she will die.)

The chains of thought rattle Mikoto, and she flinches again. Her eyes go bright with saline, and she ignores his statement, kissing his cheek instead. She knows she'll never do it again, so it's long and slow and lingering, and she says more words in it that Itachi would care to ever hear.

"Just take care of Sasuke, okay? That's all you need to promise me."

It's the rapt calmness of her tone, and the sincerity of her soft smile that mends Itachi's will, and he only nods, uttering, "Where do you...?"

His voice trails, unable to finish his own sentence.

"Next to your father, please."

Itachi knows very well if he doesn't do it now, it will never happen. So before she's even properly ready - not that she would ever be, come to think of it - he delves the blade into her chest so it would be quick. Splatters of warmth spread across his hands, and he withdraws the blade from her heart. He doesn't dare look at the wound.

She gasps without volume, blood puddling and rising in her throat like everything she wished she had the courage and power to do (but didn't), and it spills. She spills. He catches her, holding her against him, listening to her breath as a newborn infant would. His breath is shaky, tentative; hers isn't. It's slow and sleepy, like a lamb that's nodding off in a lush, green pasture, under bluesy forever sky and broken glass stars...

His thoughts curdle in his head. Sheep. They were all only sheep, and he the shepherd. It was his flock, but yet, he was no Christ and had no land for them to graze upon wherever they'd go. He couldn't promise anyone happiness, or peace, or no more troubles.

His mother's hand barely manages to clutch his shirt, and he closes his eyes.

"I'll take care of Sasuke. I promise," he swears volumelessly to her, his throat burning and tight as he speaks. She just smiles. And then she is gone.

Her resolve broken, her eyes ashen with tears and her favorite apron and dress stained with the things she'd never accomplished. Her fragile frame fits familiarly over Fugaku's strong, burly one, and her hair sprawls lovely on the floor. Long, black silk ribbons that smell like meadow flowers and crying babies and heartbreak.

Itachi stands slowly, head bowed in deep something-or-ther. Respect, to be sure, but mostly it's a lot of apologies he doesn't have the heart to say, and guilt and regret, and the desires of a two year old to hold onto their mother's bosom and breathe in the familiar, soothing scent.

His whole being seems to stop in that moment, and when the door opens he isn't ready to face Sasuke. Sasuke isn't either.

Fugaku isn't ready.

The Uchihas weren't ever ready.

Neither was Mikoto.

Then again, as Sasuke bleats and howls and cries, he knows that no sheep is ever quite ready to die.


End file.
